AMS MUNICIPALITY OF ALMERE AND AMS INSTITUTE ARE JOINING FORCES FOR FLORIADE 2022

27 May – The municipality of Almere and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the development of the Feeding the City research programme. Both parties have agreed that they will develop this research programme in the run-up to Floriade 2022.

The theme is relevant to the work of the AMS Institute and current developments in Almere, which expresses its ambitions in the following motto: Growing Green Cities. Both are striving to achieve the same goals – to realize sustainable and implementable solutions for urban issues – but are doing so from different perspectives. Both partners need each other to be able to succeed.

“Floriade 2022 and the plans that Almere has tie in perfectly with the themes on which we here at the AMS Institute are doing research and developing solutions, ” says Renée Hoogendoorn, Launching Director at the AMS Institute. “The substantive points of departure that we have in common present us with excellent prospects for a partnership that will strengthen the Amsterdam metropolis region. This is exactly why the municipality is giving this initiative its wholehearted support.”

Rene Peeters, the alderman for education in Almere, sees wonderful opportunities for research as part of the collaboration between the parties: “In the run-up to Floriade 2022, Almere will be the Living Lab in which partners from the field of education and research, the business community, residents and socially responsible businesses will seek to identify solutions for global urbanisation issues in relation to food, energy, water and health.” Floriade alderman Henk Mulder adds the following: “Ultimately, Floriade 2022 will become an international platform for the results of this search. We will pool the knowledge gained via the AMS Institute and showcase the solutions via the Floriade.”

In the Memorandum of Understanding, both parties have agreed to have explored possibilities for collaboration in Floriade 2022 by the end of 2015. If possible, they will also establish the research programme by the same date. This would make it possible to integrate the above into the Floriade implementation plan produced by the municipality of Almere in good time.